


Adaptations

by GingerS



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerS/pseuds/GingerS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life brings change. Camille Madison has seen lots of changes in her life. A new boss brings changes she didn't expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adaptations

Camille Madison woke early in anticipation of the changes the day would bring. She brewed a pot of her favorite French Vanilla flavored coffee and took her first cup out on the terrace. When she purchased this condo several years ago it had been the terrace that she had fallen in love with.

The white café table and chairs that adorned this favorite place of solace had been the first furniture purchased; the bedroom ensemble second. The living room and combination dining areas filled up with plush furnishings as well. The condo now reflected the independent yet totally feminine head nurse of the largest ER in Los Angeles County.

She lifted the steaming cup and breathed in the aroma before taking a sip and tasting the strong coffee beans laced with the sweet nectar of vanilla. Her eyes closed in appreciation as she took another sip.

Today marked another cross road in her well ordered world. Camille had experienced much change in her young life. Fresh out of nursing school she found herself at a recruiter's office signing up as an army nurse shipping out for a field hospital in the Pusan perimeter, a small area in South Korea. Upon returning to Los Angeles she found that she had to re-invent herself. The horrors she'd faced in Korea made working in a private physician's practice tedious, and manning a nurse's station on a patient floor at the hospital a monotonous chore. She needed to be where the action was. She needed to get at the heart of the impulse of why she became a nurse to begin with: treating the injured and gravely ill in an effort to give them a chance at life.

After acquiring and departing from several nursing positions, she found herself assigned to the emergency department at Harbor General Hospital where she excelled. In a few short years she had advanced to the position of Head Nurse.

She worked well with the administration and especially with the staff of physicians, but with all good things comes change and with change comes the need for adaptation. Today a new physician would be joining the staff as the new head of the emergency department. Today Dr. Benjamin Boyles, graduate of John's Hopkins who also trained at Mayo, would be taking over the reins.

Cammie had seen him around the halls; had even been formerly introduced, but her first impression led her to believe though obviously very skilled in patient care and extremely good looking, the man presented himself with an overly pompous air of appreciation for his own abilities, and that could either be a benefit or a detriment to a leader; the test of time would determine which it was for Harbor General's ER.

She sipped some more of the fragrant brew and listened to the sounds of an awakening city.

After two cups of coffee, a quick shower and last minute touches to her hair and makeup, Cammie felt ready to face the day. She hurried from her fourth floor condo, breezed into the elevator and out into the bright sunshine. It was another beautiful California day that held much promise, and she planned to make the best of it.

Dr. Benjamin Boyles pulled his two door Chrysler Imperial into the reserved parking space outside Harbor General's ER, shut off the engine and stared at the nearby automatic doors that would lead him to his new future. It was a long way from Boston, his home town, but he knew a good offer when he saw it. And the hospital administration here had given him an offer no one could refuse. Sure he would miss the snow, but he could always visit his family during the winter and have all the snow he needed. At least in LA he wouldn't have to deal with the snow plows burying his car next to the curb under 20 feet of snow, or have to worry about freezing his ass off just making his way from the hospital to the parking garage.

First on his list of self imposed duties of the day was a meeting with the key members of his staff of physicians, and the head nurse. 'Maybe she can take notes.' He thought to himself. 'That way I won't need a personal secretary. That salary can be redistributed to adding another nurse or medical tech to the staff. There's no reason the nursing staff can't handle any notes or dictations that need to be added to the patient charts. I bet some of them can type too.' That decided he slid out from behind the steering wheel, grabbed his briefcase and locked the car.

When he crossed the threshold into the busy ER he was assaulted with the pungent odor of emesis and a sight that would make most people cringe and run away. The floor before him was splattered with blood and puke. Track marks apparently from a gurney crisscrossed through the muck and tracked traces of it down the hall to a treatment room. He grabbed the arm of an orderly as he passed, "Get housekeeping up here immediately." The orderly had no clue who the man in the sport coat and obnoxious tie was, but his voice of authority left no room for arguments. Dr. Boyles stepped over the mess and continued on to his office.

"Good morning Dr. Boyles." A buxom blonde in a neatly pressed suit sat at a desk inside a cubicle outside his office. He assumed she might be from the hospital secretarial pool.

"Good morning. May I see you in my office?" He opened the door and waited for her to join him. He walked around the desk and put his briefcase down before speaking. "Thank you, miss…?"

"Hancock." The pretty blonde smiled as she gave her name. "Amelia Hancock."

"Yes, Ms. Hancock. You may return to the secretarial pool. I won't need a secretary." He looked up to find the woman still standing in front of him with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. He dismissed her with a curt "Thank you." The woman burst into tears and practically ran from the room. 'That went well.' He thought, but he didn't waste any more time on what he believed to be just another emotional female reaction. It's not like he fired her, he never even hired the woman. He just sent her back to the pool. He reached for the phone and dialed the extension on the list beside the phone that indicated the ER nurse's desk. After four rings he hung up the phone with a little too much force and moved toward the door. As he rounded the desk the phone rang. "Boyles." He practically barked into the receiver.

"Good Morning Dr. Boyles." Cammie said pleasantly into the phone. She sat perched on the stool at her station. Having just come on duty she too had seen the mess in the entrance and had effectively handled getting the patient moved to a treatment room and housekeeping called to attend to the floor before the good doctor had even exited his car. Of course neither knew of the other's efforts to rectify the out of hand situation they had walked in on. She hesitated for his response. When she didn't get one she pressed forward. "I have assembled the staff to meet with you in fifteen minutes. I tried to ring your secretary, but the hospital operator informed me that extension had been disabled. I can call the secretarial pool to send down another…"

"No, that won't be necessary." Boyles cut her off mid sentence. "We'll meet in my office." He hung up the phone before she had the chance to say anything else.

Cammie looked at the phone handset before placing it back in its cradle. Before she had a chance to even decide what to do next the phone rang. "Harbor General Emergency, Nurse Madison speaking."

"Hello beautiful."

"Well if it isn't Jim Boyd." She teased.

"Are we still on for tonight?"

"I think so. Today is the first day with my new boss, so if all goes well you should be able to pick me up at six." She smiled. She was looking forward to dinner and a movie with her long time companion.

"Okay, I'll be there. I love you babe."

"I love you too." She hung up the phone and glanced at her watch surprised at how quickly the time ticked away. If she was going to have the two lead ER doctors in Dr. Boyles' office in ten minutes she would have to hurry. She peeked into treatment room six first and told Dr. Palmer where the meeting would be taking place and then hurried over to treatment room one to inform Dr. Jones. She returned to the nurse's station to grab two cups of coffee. She didn't know how the new Doctor took his coffee, so she also grabbed the creamer and sugar dispensers and headed down the hall. The other doctors knew she nor her nurses acted as coffee girls. They were on their own, but out of first day courtesy she would bring some for the new man.

With her notepad in her pocket in the event that she needed to take notes, she felt that she was as ready to deal with this new doctor as she would ever be. He might be the new "Doctor in Charge", but this was her ER and she ran a tight ship.

Juggling the two full cups of coffee and the condiments and trying to knock on the office door was difficult, but Cammie managed. When the man inside called for her to enter it became impossible. She turned and asked the nurse at the check in desk for assistance thanking her as she slipped into the opened door. "I thought you might like some coffee." She placed one cup on the desk in front of the man. "I didn't know what you took in it, so I brought both creamer and sugar."

"Miss Madison, this is a business meeting, not a coffee break."

Cammie was taken aback by the harshness of his words and the anger that flashed in his eyes, but before she could respond the other two doctors entered the room without knocking and both holding a cup of coffee. She simply smiled and took a seat on the sofa against the wall leaving the two chairs for the doctors.

From her perspective across the room she could see just how blue his eyes really were.

"Okay, let's get right down to business. Miss Madison if you could take notes. I would like the minutes typed up and distributed to each of the attendees before the end of the day."

"I'm a nurse Dr. Boyles, not a secretary." She moved to stand up and call for a secretary, but he interrupted her.

"Yes I realize that, but I also noted that the nursing staff could use some assistance. I felt that if I found a way to make do without a full time secretary, we could use those funds to hire an additional nurse or medical tech." He stood looking at her for a response. She simply pulled out her notepad and raised her pen in preparation to write. He made a valid point and in her opinion patient care came first. An additional nurse or medical tech had been on her request log for years. If that meant a little typing or filing, she could handle that. "Shall we continue?"

The meeting had been long and her notes detailed. Thankfully it had been a quiet morning in the ER. The doctors that had come down to cover for the staff while they met with their new leader had handled everything with skillful ease. Cammie hadn't been too concerned about her nurses. She had worked hard to bring them up to a level where they could function with little leadership. Having been on staff at Harbor General for several years also afforded Cammie with many friends including some executive secretaries who would gladly compile her notes into the typed format Dr. Boyles required, and all she would have to do is buy a coffee and piece of pie as payment.

The real problem was how to deal with the emotions this tall, good looking new doctor stirred in her every time he looked her way.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of my friends in the Emergency! fanfiction realm my recognize that Camille Madison and Dr. Benjamin Boyles have a strong resemblance to Dixie and Dr. Brackett. When I first started the story it was intended as an Emergency! fanfic, but then I decided to post it as an original piece in answer to a writing prompt on a different site. I think it works either way. I hope you agree. I also may someday extend this one into a longer story. Thanks for reading.


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